Borkity, Bork, Bork, Bork!

I have used the implied promise of lurid Bork-talk to lure you into another salty discourse on the Four-Quadrant Podcast.

Am I embarrassed or ashamed of this trickery?  

No I am not.  Because there will be (some) Bork-talk ahead.

 But for now, what is a Four-Quadrant Podcast?  

From yesterday:

If you listen with a critic's ear or read with a critic's eye, you will quickly notice that virtually every mainstream media political reporter and pundit, every Never Trump podcast and every Third Way/Country/Over Party/No Labels grift checks every single box, which is why such enterprises are profitable and influential.  Because people with very deep pockets who live in a hermetically sealed world of wealth and clout really, really want to believe this very simple and utterly false political fairy tale.

So, on yesterday's Bulwark podcast was there a bit of happytalk?

Yep.

Was there mention of what a shitshow Republicans are making of the confirmation hearing?

Yes there was.

Stoddard:  It just, uh, seems just sort of extra special ugly, I think, um, that they would soil the first day with all that 2024 stuff but they have to.

Sykes: And it is 2024 stuff.  And it was performative by Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz.  But let's just set them aside for a moment -- I wish it could be permanent -- but, um, Marsha Blackburn.

Stoddard: Yes! I forgot to add her! 

Sykes: Why, first of all, why is Marsha Blackburn on the judiciary committee?  I... I... I... I... I watch her, and it... just... I... words fail.

Was there a hard pivot to, But The Democrats...?

Damn betcha there was.  Here is a dramatic re-enactment.

Sykes:  Bork!  Bork!  It all went to shit when Evil Liberals came for Bork.  Before that everything was collegial and civilized but then the Left politicized everything and it's all their fault!

Stoddard:  Indeed.  Bork!  Bork!

Sykes:  Borkity Bork Bork! 

Stoddard:  We should probably also mention what Republicans did to Merrick Garland.  

Sykes:  Meh.  That pales into nothingness compared to the Borking of poor, angelic, blameless Robert Bork!  No president had ever had their nominee shot down like that.  Those damn Liberals ruined everything!

But because he barely listens to the words coming out of his own mouth, barely five minutes later Sykes negated his own Liberals Coming For Bork Are To Blame For Everything origin myth...and never even noticed:

Sykes:  I'm guessing that you are too young to even remember this stuff, um, because I remember the most intense, uh, confirmation fight...the sort of, y'know, formative for me was watching, um back in 1970 Harold Carswell and Clement Haynesworth.  Do you remember them?

Stoddard: I was not watching them on CNN (laugh).

Sykes: Because okay... so okay... so anyway, so Nixon made two consecutive appointments to the high court both of which were rejected. Carswell was rejected.  No.  Actually I got it wrong here. So Clement Haynesworth was rejected, I think, for a variety of things about his qualifications.  I think some of his, uh, comments on race.  I'm kind of... remember. So he was voted down 55-45 which was kind of a shock at the time because that hadn't happened in a very long time.

Fun Fact:  The event which Sykes insists marks the end of Civility in America and justifies all Republican excesses since then -- the Senate rejecting Robert Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court -- was by a vote of 58–42.  With 52 Democrats and six Republicans voting against the nomination.

Sykes: And then Nixon had a second crack at it and he nominates Harold Carswell and everyone's sort of assuming, well he's going to get the second one since they went through all of the heavy lifting of stopping the first one.  And Harold Carswell was basically a mediocrity and he was also voted down 51/45 and I remember just being fascinated by this that you had two consecutive nominees voted down.  I don't know the last time that happened.   And then, so, Nixon has a third crack at it and he names Harry Blackmun who goes on to be the author of roe versus wade and Harry Blackmun was confirmed on a vote of 94 to nothing.

If you want to know more about what actually happened around the Bork nomination and not gauzy, aggrieved GOP legends, you could do worse than beginning your journey here.   

But we don't have a lot of time time to marvel at how Sykes managed to set his own Bork Origin Myth on fire, because now were on to an even wilder variation on the But The Democrats... trope in which Democrats are to blame for the Federalist Society.  

I kid you not.

Mere moments after slagging Democrats for ruining everything by politicizing the courts, A.B. Stoddard turns around and slags Democrats for not politicizing the courts and letting the Right and the Federalist Society from get away with murder.  

Stoddard:  What's interesting though, and I... I have to just note, is that the Democrats... the... the activist Left might be, y'know super-energized at moments, but as a party the... the Democrats did not make this a a huge issue with their voters either in 2016 or 2020.  The last election I... I kept asking when are they going to talk about the courts and they don't. They don't tell their voters what this means.  And so, y'know, the fact that conservatives or the... the general Right, um, the Federal Society that, y'know, the best minds on the Right have been organizing, fundraising, planning, recruiting, grooming for the... to take over the courts for years in an effective way is the Democrats' fault.

After which Sykes fondly recalls how laser-focused all Republican politics has been on packing the courts going back as long as he can remember.  

Sykes:  That's really interesting because I can't remember a time when I did not think of the courts as being decisive. I... I can remember back in the 1980s thinking that the most important thing, um, about the presidential election was who they might put on a court...

So having blamed the Borkity Bork Bork Democrats for politicizing the courts and then blaming  Democrats for Republican perfidy because the did not politicizing the courts, we find that the Bulwark has checked off the Happytalk, Those Rascally Republicans and But The Democrats boxes.

But do they also manage to get around to Both Sidesing?

Well of course they do, because that is the whole reason for a Four-Quadrant Podcast.  

Sykes:  ...that five justices now determine the fate of almost all of the issues and while we have this completely dysfunctional congressional uh... uh world and our... the gridlock of our politics um the power has been ceded to this... this court...

Sykes: ...I know that people like Justice Roberts had been really concerned about this.  About the credibility of the court.  About about the integrity of the court, uh, and the legitimacy of the court.  Um, I think this is a losing fight right now and I think we're seeing it played out in... in the way it becomes Red versus Blue.  

Stoddard:  You... you... you make such a powerful point the congress ceded by shutting down as an institution and barely functioning, um it is... it refuses to share power, it doesn't guard its power anymore and it has ceded its power...

Sykes:  Speaking of which just when you thought the congress could not get any stupider...

And thus, brick by brick, day after day, does this tiny band of former Republican pundits, political hacks and Hate Radio jocks with deep ties to the Beltway media continue recasting themselves as the Sensible Center.

Burn The Lifeboats